Frequently it is necessary to replace and replant lawn and golf green sod or turf from one area to another. Turf repair is a common procedure in golf course maintenance. Turf repairing tools have been used in the past to cut sections of sod from nursery sod for replacing damaged grass areas of lawns, fairways, and golf greens. These turf repairing tools include circular cup shaped cutting blades secured to the lower end of elongated shafts. Transverse handles are attached to the top of the shafts to facilitate manual use of the tools. The tools cut circular or round turf plugs. When conventional round turf plugs are used in repairing a damaged area of turf, spaces or gaps are left in the repaired damaged section. The gaps are filled with soil or handmade pieces of sod. The circular plugs can be overlapped to close the gaps. Hand making pieces of sod and overlapping round plugs waste turf, increases turf repair time, labor, and expense. The unrepaired areas between the round plugs must be left to grow in new grass leaving the turf area with an uneven surface and a poor appearance for several weeks.
A turf repair tool that removes and replaces square portions of turf is disclosed in Woodbury Box Company, Inc. publication The tool has four cutting blades pivoted on a horizontal base. The blades can be moved downwardly into the sod to provide single square plugs. These plugs are arranged in a rectangular or square-shaped pattern to cover a damaged area of turf. The linear side and end walls of the square turf plugs engage the linear side and end walls of adjacent square plugs The linear relationship between the square turf plugs does not prevent relative linear movement or slippage of adjacent square plugs. The cartesian pattern of square plugs used to repair an area of damaged turf is easily disturbed as the plugs can move relative to each other.